Monday, November 9, 2009

The Tale of Horace 2

"Oh for the love of all that is good and true, why must I be beset by this infernal cricket in my ear? This electronic nag, this insistent ear-grater? God help me, I've got no cows to milk! Do you hear me? NO COWS!"

Horace was not accustomed to rising before being driven from his bed by pangs of hunger and the lure of cold pizza. At this hour, 6:18AM, the sun had not yet penetrated the heavy black curtains of Horace's window, nor even lightened the periphery. All was dark save the glowing numbers. He was too tired to even be hungry yet. And he was befuddled. Somewhere in the back of his mind, hidden under blankets, was a reason for this invasion of unwelcome sound. Muffled memory told him there was something, but he didn't care to know.

"Drat and foolishness!" A recollection dawned in him. "I'm to be made a slave of the state today, a slack-jawed, drooling yes man for various adult mediocrities. These ludicrous excuses for maturity, these knuckle-dragging toadies, these chalk-choked unionistas and soft-hearted fascists are going to hold me in their perverse hands, trying to mold me and shape me. Their pudgy fingers will grope about and try to make me one of them. My God, they are going to eat my brains! No, I'll have none of it! They may drag me to school by force, but I refuse to let them lay a hand on my mind!"

However high-minded Horace may have sounded in his opposition to public education, the reality was that his desire for personal liberty was rooted in sloth. Teachers were always after him to DO things. And the things in question were never worth the bother, he was certain of that. They were like happy little gnomes serving as functionaries in a Kafka novel. He didn't understand it. Why were they so enamored with his potential, having been so little interested in their own?

"Humbug" he fumed, dressing himself in the darkness. "I declare this day that these self-appointed do-gooders shall be made to pay for their impudence. I, Horace, will be decidedly and persistently unhelpful. Sullenness will mark my demeanor like leprosy. I will be a stinking corpse, a baneful scarecrow, a malevolent toad in their classrooms!"

This path of non-violent resistance decided upon, Horace actually started to feel excited about the first day of school. He imagined himself to be a kind of Neo-Ghandian with meat on his bones. He would thrust himself forward as a leader of men, a valiant fighter for freedom. Horace Pickwick would give them what for.

Thirty minutes later, Horace trudged to school with something approximating joy in his heart.